I'll like to make a Toast

You can be forgiven for thinking; what's up with Karl? Has he won the lottery? Has somebody recently got hitched?

Or, maybe, being the foodie he claims to be; he wants to introduce us to his latest variety of toast?

I can assure you within this article, there will be no mention of jellied, buttered, cheese, alba, cinnamon or peanut butter toast. However, for the food artisans amongst you; this one is for you!

Right! The Toast I refer to is one of a programming kind; Android programming to be precise.

I would like to spend the rest of this article introducing you to the basics of this programming feature and roundup with your very own custom Toast.

I Never Knew Android Made Toast

Android Toasts are short message prompts displayed to users about a current operation. They are typically presented at the bottom of the screen for a couple of seconds prior to fading away. A toast's display position can also be changed by altering its center of gravity; which I'll explain further, later in the article.

This tutorial has been carried out using the following tools:

Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks)
JDK 1.8
Android Studio 2.1.1
LGE LG-D855 Android 5.0, API 21

1. Let's Make a Toast

Toasts are typically created by calling the makeText() method; which instantiates a Toast object.

Toast toast = Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "I'll like to make a toast!", Toast.LENGTH_LONG);

The following parameters are accepted by the method.

(Context) - The application context.
(CharSequence) - The message to be displayed.
(int) - How long to display the message; e.g; Toast.LENGTH_LONG

The show() method is called to display the Toast message.

toast.show();

Once executed, you should see the same toast message as shown in fig. 1; which is displayed whenever the Toast button is pressed. A complete listing of the code is provided at the end of this tutorial.

2. Toast's Center of Gravity

As I previously mentioned you can also customize the display location of your Toast by setting the setGravity() method; as shown below.

toast.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER,0,0);

The following parameters are accepted by the method.

(int) - A Gravity constant; specifying a new screen location
(int) - X-coordinate offset relative to gravity constant.
(int) - Y-coordinate offset relative to gravity constant.

Once executed, your new toast message will be centered and displayed in the middle of the screen, with no offsets.; as shown in fig.2.

3. Custom Toast

If the default toast message is not frilly enough for you, Android have kindly provided us with the ability to spice things up a little and create your own look and feel.

You would have to create your own custom layout XML file; which in turn will be inflated within your code into a View object; which will then be passed into the setView() method of your Toast object.

Let's create a new layout file called frilly_toast_layout.xml.

As described above, you would then inflate the above layout file within your code and pass the instantiated View object into the Toast.setView() method; as shown below.

LayoutInflater inflater = getLayoutInflater(); 
View toastLayout = inflater.inflate(R.layout.frilly_toast_layout, (ViewGroup) findViewById(R.id.custom_toast_layout)); 

Toast toast = new Toast(getApplicationContext()); 
toast.setDuration(Toast.LENGTH_LONG); 
toast.setView(toastLayout); 
oast.show();

Once compiled and executed; your new frilly toast prompt; should look like the one shown in Fig.3.

A Final Toast

I would like to make a final toast to You! For not only making it to the end of this tutorial but hopefully, you are now a little more knowledgeable about all things Toast (the Android Programming kind, that is)!

Key methods to remember are Toast.makeText() for instantiating a new Toast object.
Once relevant Toast object variables have been set; the message can be displayed by calling the Toast.show() method.
Unlike John Mayer's Gravity song, Toast.setGravity() works with you and not only can it raise your toast up; but it can also bring it down.
If you are feeling adventurous; jazz things up a little by creating your very own customized toast layout; inflate it and then display it!

The three main files used throughout this tutorial have been listed below.

That's all for now, as I sign off to enjoy my toasties (I'll leave you to work out which one).

Karl Katewu

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